Japan Turns to Nuclear Fusion, Post Fukushima

Images via FusionPowerCorporation
After the Fukushima nuclear crisis -- triggered by a massive earthquake and tsunami -- Japan has been strongly divided on nuclear power. Many Japanese will only consider a nuclear future for Japan if the technology is proven to be free of threats of radioactive contamination and runaway chain reaction meltdowns. Nuclear fusion offers the promise of nuclear power without melt-downs or widespread contamination -- even after the worst natural disasters. And so International Professional Networks (IPN) of Japan has turned to Fusion Power Corporation (FPC) to investigate the use of FPC's heavy ion fusion (HIF) for Japan.

With the loss of nuclear facilities at Fukushima, Japan is in need of an alternative set of energy production facilities. As a result of that loss, Japan's prime minister, Naoto Kan recently announced that: “… the country will abandon plans to build more nuclear reactors” and has encouraged Japan to explore other forms of energy production. “Fusion power production using the techniques incorporated in the Fusion Power Corporation HIF design should be one of the systems under consideration,” said Mr. Saruta.


Dr. Charles Helsley, President of Fusion Power Corporation, is very confident that FPC's fusion power system is a good fit for Japan's needed power development. It is carbon free and generates no radioactive problems while producing hydrogen for synthetic fuels and ample electricity using known technologies. Dr. Helsley said, “FPC's HIF process can provide many benefits to the world. It is an inherently safe system and cannot 'run away' nor ‘melt down'. It can stabilize the cost of energy to industry while meeting the need for liquid fuels and electricity in a clean, green and safe way.” And he further said, “I am very pleased with FPC's association with IPN and look forward to assisting in Japan's development of safe fusion power as a replacement for the problem laden fission power generation systems.” Mr. Saruta added, “It will be one of the best alternatives for the solution of Japan's current energy problem and should be part of Japan's long term plan.”


FPC is a California Corporation established to create a new 'clean green … and safe' power system using Heavy Ion Fusion energy to supply the energy needs of the US and the world _Benzinga

FPC utilises a deuterium - tritium cycle, with the tritium being generated by neutron - lithium reaction.

More information on Fusion Power Corporation's HIF technology

The isotopes of hydrogen have specific names, unlike the isotopes of other elements, namely deuterium and tritium. Deuterium(2H) is naturally present in all water and thus seawater is our primary source of fuel. Tritium(3H), the other component of fuel in a fusion power source, is of very low abundance in nature. This is in consequence of tritium being an unstable isotope with a relatively short half-life, 12.3 years. Tritium to start-up the first of our fusion systems will come from stores extracted from fission power plants, where it serves no useful purpose and is unwanted. Containment of tritium is virtually the sole radiological safety issue for fusion power. The difficulty of achieving zero release of tritium in fission power plants comes from having water both in contact with the core and to drive steam turbines. Fusion does not have this challenge, and zero release is a practical goal.


Although an external source of tritium is needed to start our operations, we will produce it for long-term operations via a feature of the D-T reaction. Like all D-T fusion systems, we will use the neutron from the fusion reaction to produce tritium from neutron-lithium reactions. Lithium is consumed in the D-T fuel cycle. As discussed in the last section (below), the lithium needed to start-up the first fusion system will come from conventional, land-based sources. However, the oceans contain large quantities of lithium, and FPC’s overall system includes extraction of lithium from seawater to produce the energy the world needs. Thus resources for our two long term fuel needs for deuterium and lithium are found in the oceans. We will extract our fuel in processes that are sensitive environmentally, and these resources are enough to last millions of years.


The FPC system has a unique potential to breed substantially more tritium than it burns. This is an important asset to the start-up of the additional HIF power sites needed around the world for two reasons. First, because it uses the more plentiful lithium isotope (7Li) as well as 6Li (7.5% of the total), it reduces the net amount of lithium that will ultimately be consumed over time in the fusion fuel cycle. Second, the excess tritium will supply the startup needs of successive fusion plants, avoiding a potential bottleneck due to limited tritium from non-fusion sources. Most of the excess tritium will be sold for this purpose, but some may be securely stored and allowed to decay to 3He, a valuable substance with extraordinary physical properties as well as being a fusion fuel. _FPC Technology

Heavy Ion Fusion Tutorial from VNL

...in fast ignition a separate, very sharp pulse (high peak-power and less than 1/10 the duration of the compression process) is used to ignite only the desired mass of fuel after it has been compressed. The “fast ignited” fuel sets off the rest of the fuel much like a blasting cap sets off a stick of dynamite. The great importance of this feature of FPC’s driver (also a feature of the Russian design) is that the required fuel compression has been within the state of the art for some years already....


The space in which the fusion reactions take place is called a reaction chamber. Three factors influence its design. First, the chamber needs to hold a good vacuum to enable the heavy ions from the accelerator system to reach the fuel pellet and to provide a secure containment vessel for the capture of the tritium that is generated after the reaction takes place. Second, the chamber must be able to withstand the pressure generated by the fusion reaction. And third, the reaction chamber must contain a liquid that can be heated to a high temperature as part of the energy extraction process.


...There is a fourth factor that must also be considered in the design of the reaction chamber. As stated earlier, the neutrons produced by the fusion reaction carry 80% of the reaction’s energy. The energy must be captured as thermal energy, for downstream conversion to electricity and other energy products, and the neutrons must be prevented from degrading the structural properties of the chamber materials. FPC’s chamber concept accomplishes all the required missions, and much more. The numerous advantages of the chamber’s configuration include a unique combination of long chamber life and the high temperatures in working fluid that are needed for efficient energy conversion. Ultimately, the set of advantages results in very large economic benefits. _FPCTechnology

Cross-posted to Al Fin Energy blog

Clearly FPC's heavy ion fusion design still needs a lot of work to prove itself, before Japan can generate fusion power this way. HIF is not a small-scale design, and as described by FPC it is meant to form the nucleus of a large industrial complex for the production of electrical power, heat, fuels, chemicals, seawater desalination, and so on -- depending upon particular needs.

Such a project is well within the ability of Japan's industrial and engineering expertise, as long as the central HIF technology can be made to work sustainably.

Lori Gottlieb and the Collapse of the American Empire

The message we send kids with all the choices we give them is that they are entitled to a perfect life—that, as Dan Kindlon, the psychologist from Harvard, puts it, “if they ever feel a twinge of non-euphoria, there should be another option.” Mogel puts it even more bluntly: what parents are creating with all this choice are anxious and entitled kids whom she describes as “handicapped royalty.” _Lori Gottlieb

Pity meek and mild Lori Gottlieb, an intern in family counseling who has made some interesting observations in the course of her work. Gottlieb discussed her observations in a recent piece in the Atlantic. The piece has raised a firestorm of online debate, snark, and condemnation, almost entirely undeserved. The fault in Gottlieb's piece lies not in what she says, but in what she leaves out -- what these disturbing findings imply for the future of the American empire.

...Here I was, seeing the flesh-and-blood results of the kind of parenting that my peers and I were trying to practice with our own kids, precisely so that they wouldn’t end up on a therapist’s couch one day. We were running ourselves ragged in a herculean effort to do right by our kids—yet what seemed like grown-up versions of them were sitting in our offices, saying they felt empty, confused, and anxious. Back in graduate school, the clinical focus had always been on how the lack of parental attunement affects the child. It never occurred to any of us to ask, what if the parents are too attuned? What happens to those kids?

...Dan Kindlon, a child psychologist and lecturer at Harvard, warns against what he calls our “discomfort with discomfort” in his book Too Much of a Good Thing: Raising Children of Character in an Indulgent Age. If kids can’t experience painful feelings, Kindlon told me when I called him not long ago, they won’t develop “psychological immunity.”

“It’s like the way our body’s immune system develops,” he explained. “You have to be exposed to pathogens, or your body won’t know how to respond to an attack. Kids also need exposure to discomfort, failure, and struggle...

...Wendy Mogel is a clinical psychologist in Los Angeles who, after the publication of her book The Blessing of a Skinned Knee a decade ago, became an adviser to schools all over the country. When I talked to her this spring, she said that over the past few years, college deans have reported receiving growing numbers of incoming freshmen they’ve dubbed “teacups” because they’re so fragile that they break down anytime things don’t go their way. “Well-intentioned parents have been metabolizing their anxiety for them their entire childhoods,” Mogel said of these kids, “so they don’t know how to deal with it when they grow up.”

...A few months ago, I called up Jean Twenge, a co-author of The Narcissism Epidemic and professor of psychology at San Diego State University, who has written extensively about narcissism and self-esteem. She told me she wasn’t surprised that some of my patients reported having very happy childhoods but felt dissatisfied and lost as adults. When ego-boosting parents exclaim “Great job!” not just the first time a young child puts on his shoes but every single morning he does this, the child learns to feel that everything he does is special. Likewise, if the kid participates in activities where he gets stickers for “good tries,” he never gets negative feedback on his performance.

...This same teacher—who asked not to be identified, for fear of losing her job—says she sees many parents who think they’re setting limits, when actually, they’re just being wishy-washy. “A kid will say, ‘Can we get ice cream on the way home?’ And the parent will say, ‘No, it’s not our day. Ice-cream day is Friday.’ Then the child will push and negotiate, and the parent, who probably thinks negotiating is ‘honoring her child’s opinion,’ will say, ‘Fine, we’ll get ice cream today, but don’t ask me tomorrow, because the answer is no!’” The teacher laughed. “Every year, parents come to me and say, ‘Why won’t my child listen to me? Why won’t she take no for an answer?’ And I say, ‘Your child won’t take no for an answer, because the answer is never no!’”

... _theAtlantic

And so on... An interesting glimpse into the modern state of child-raising in the US from someone on the front lines of family therapy.

If Americans truly are raising generations of fragile, entitled children, who is going to do the hard work that needs to be done? As long as the US economy was doing well, America could import its hard workers and many of its hard thinkers, so as to keep the wheels of commerce and invention moving along. But with the rapid emergence of crisis levels of debt and demography, the US economy may not be able to import so much of its needed human capital -- to compensate for the disastrous failures of its parents and educational system.

Children need to learn practical competence in a wide range of skills. They need to learn to focus on a difficult task, and learn to work hard at it until it is done. Children must not be age-segregated in prison schools for so many of their formative years, kept away from any responsibility or opportunity to explore the real world.

The Roman Empire collapsed over a few centuries for many of the reasons the American empire is threatened: debt, demography, social problems that were swept under the rug, entitled and abusive ruling classes, etc.

American parents have only one or two children, on average, and far too many of them are being raised as "trophy children," pampered perpetually childish pets rather than skilled, competent, and responsible proto-adults. This failure to reproduce -- and failure to competently raise the meagre progeny which they do produce -- is what truly threatens the collapse of the American Experiment (not actually an empire in the Roman sense at all).

Gottlieb was actually rather tentative and modest in her conclusions -- not taking them as far as she perhaps should have. Yet she was widely castigated by the "pampering nannies" of modern academia, journalism, and the blogosphere. The dysfunction can probably not be reversed before catastrophe ensues, at least not in the many strongholds of the destructive philosophy.

It is up to parents who wish to raise competent and functional children to structure an environment around the child which facilitates the acquisition of skills and an ongoing successful adaptation to adult world responsibilities.

Previously published at Al Fin, The Next Level

Will Oil Cost $500 a Barrel When the Climate Resets?

Climate Reset via WUWT
The graph above illustrates a "climate reset" occurring due to the solar cycle effect. The next abrupt climate reset is due to occur any moment now -- within the next several years. As depicted above, the "global temperature" is due to abruptly drop to average levels not seen in over 100 years, then to slowly return to near current levels near the middle of the current century.

With all the talk of "peak oil" and oil prices shooting up to $500 a barrel or above very soon, it is worth considering how modern societies will face decades of cooling weather when fuel prices are very high.

First of all, what are the valid points of the "peak oil argument?" Christophe de Margerie, the CEO of France's Total oil company, presents one of the most rational definitions of peak oil:

... he was saying that the world is fast approaching the maximum volume of oil it can possibly produce, which he reckons is about 95 million barrels a day; that's just 8 percentage points higher than the 88 million barrels a day the world consumes at the moment. _FP

A very valid point. The planet has only so many oil rigs, so many trained oil workers and engineers, so many points of production that can be brought into play -- at least until the dawn of artificially intelligent robotic oil exploration, discovery, and production.

Another valid point from the peak oil argument comes from Doug Casey, investor and man of the world:

Peak oil is a geological concept. It basically holds that all the low-hanging fruit has been picked. Now, philosophically, it rubs me the wrong way, in that I have total confidence that human ingenuity will find scores of ways to produce new hydrocarbon fuels – and lots of totally new energy sources in addition. Furthermore, the higher oil prices go, the more will be found – and the more it will be economized. So, in a free-market world, oil is a non-problem.

But we don’t currently live in that kind of world. In the meantime – let’s say the next 10-20 years – oil is an issue, for simple geological reasons. And also because, even though consumption has been basically flat in the advanced world for decades, consumption is going to grow radically in “Chindia” and the rest of the developing world. The biggest problem though is likely political, especially because of the increased political risk in the Middle East, where most of the world’s oil reserves are. You’ve got to be bullish on oil. _HoweStreet

Casey is saying two things about peak oil: 1. The sweet, light crude is becoming more rare and more dear. 2. Free market responses which would make it easy to substitute and adjust to changing supplies, are being hampered by political forces. In other words, Political Peak Oil is in play. One other point Casey is making to support his belief that oil prices are likely to shoot up: He believes that China and India will increasingly drive world oil demand for the foreseeable future.

For those reasons, Casey believes that oil could soon shoot up to $200 or $250 a barrel. If Casey's assumption about Chindia demand are correct, his conclusion on oil price could also be correct. But....

Al Fin energy futurologists and economic forecasters do not believe that India and China are ready to drive the global economic steamroller due to the many serious internal and regional problems each nation faces. And given the serious combined problems of debt and demographic decline which the current drivers of the world economy -- The Anglosphere, Japan, and Europe -- are suffering, we are more likely to see another global economic downturn before too long. This is likely to occur well before China and India are ready to steer the machine.

What does all that mean in terms of the cost of staying warm throughout the 2010s and 2020s? It means that unless the advanced nations of the world can dump their "energy starvationist" governments and learn to use the resources which are available, some societies accustomed to reliable power and heat will find it difficult to keep the lights on.

Brain from the Bottom Up: Spontaneous Birth of Synchrony in Small Neuronal Networks

More 13 July 2011: Brian Wang looks at the same research, with an emphasis on the hardware (electronic) aspect. It is fitting to look at both the neurons and the electronics, since the coming cybernetic biosingularity will be dependent upon both.

Human intelligence and consciousness are poorly understood, even by cognitive scientists, neuroscientists, and consciousness specialists. No one understands how to build a human intelligence from scratch, much less how to build a non-human intelligence capable of interacting with humans and the outside world on its own terms. But researchers at Tel Aviv University from the departments of Electrical Engineering and Physics, have taken a fascinating approach to building the basic components of brains: networks of biological neurons. Something wonderful happened when enough cultured neurons linked together in network: They spontaneously "synched up."

Background


Information processing in neuronal networks relies on the network's ability to generate temporal patterns of action potentials. Although the nature of neuronal network activity has been intensively investigated in the past several decades at the individual neuron level, the underlying principles of the collective network activity, such as the synchronization and coordination between neurons, are largely unknown. Here we focus on isolated neuronal clusters in culture and address the following simple, yet fundamental questions: What is the minimal number of cells needed to exhibit collective dynamics? What are the internal temporal characteristics of such dynamics and how do the temporal features of network activity alternate upon crossover from minimal networks to large networks?


Methodology/Principal Findings


We used network engineering techniques to induce self-organization of cultured networks into neuronal clusters of different sizes. We found that small clusters made of as few as 40 cells already exhibit spontaneous collective events characterized by innate synchronous network oscillations in the range of 25 to 100 Hz. The oscillation frequency of each network appeared to be independent of cluster size. The duration and rate of the network events scale with cluster size but converge to that of large uniform networks. Finally, the investigation of two coupled clusters revealed clear activity propagation with master/slave asymmetry.

Conclusions/Significance


The nature of the activity patterns observed in small networks, namely the consistent emergence of similar activity across networks of different size and morphology, suggests that neuronal clusters self-regulate their activity to sustain network bursts with internal oscillatory features. We therefore suggest that clusters of as few as tens of cells can serve as a minimal but sufficient functional network, capable of sustaining oscillatory activity. Interestingly, the frequencies of these oscillations are similar those observed in vivo. _PLoS

More papers by Mark Shein Idelson

Brain synchrony is an important topic of study, linked to consciousness, memory, learning, and normal function of general human brain activity. But synchronous oscillations are also programmed into the neurons themselves, at the smallest level of neuronal organisation. The challenge now, is to build "networks of networks", to discover the communications strategies which interconnected networks will evolve.

Contrast such a biological, bottom up approach with complex machine models of brain function such as the SpiNNaker project out of the University of Manchester, or the Human Brain Project (HBP) led by Henry Markram at Ecole Polytechnique de Lausanne.

Both of the above brain modeling approaches using computers, are based upon bottom-up theories of how brains work. The Lausanne project (HBP) is far more detailed -- going down to the ion channel level of neurons. The Manchester approach is impressive in its parallel computing ambitions, but it begins at the individual "neuronal spiking" level. SpiNNaker is more of a hybrid CompSci:Neurosci approach, than an actual model of the brain like the HBP.

Conventional artificial intelligence approaches do not mimic brain function closely, and are generally more "top-down" approaches, utilising conventional algorithmic concepts of mainstream computer science. Such approaches are doomed to failure before they even begin, as the last 70 years of conventional AI attempts continue to demonstrate.

In reality, brains must be grown. And new types of brains have to be evolved. Not necessarily from biological materials, but up until now the only working brains we know are biological. The first successful autonomous brains are likely to be evolved either from biological materials, or using ingenious abstractions of processes which emerge from biological mechanisms.

Al Fin cognitive scientists suggest that both the Lausanne approach and the Manchester approach are abstracted at the wrong level, if they wish to provide rapid paths to evolved intelligences. Creative human beings will have to discover the appropriate balance, but they will certainly be aided by computing systems in doing so. This is not gobbledygook nor is it AI-psychobabble. It is the genuine crux and pivot point of the problem.

What are the implications for the singularity? There will be no "uploading of consciousness" for the foreseeable future. The cyborg biosingularity is still on schedule for the decade between 2020 and 2030, if humans can avoid an extended Obama Dark Ages. The main question is how many of the cyborg components will be biological in origin, and how many will be non-biological (probably utilising nanotechnology).

Multi-Voxel Pattern Analysis of fMRI Reveals Brain Behind the Scenes

The research measured activity in a brain area known as the object-selective cortex (OSC) while participants were preparing to find a wide range of representational images of cars or people within briefly-displayed (100 ms) naturalistic scenes which they had not previously viewed. The subjects were first given visual cues that specified the category of objects (i.e., cars or people) to be located within the scenes. The key finding was that the cue alone – that is, even when no scene was subsequently shown – generated OSC responses determined through multivoxel pattern analysis (MVPA) that were strikingly similar to those that occurred when looking at actual examples of the cued category. Moreover, when looking at scenes, this neural activity pattern reliably predicted the subjects’ performance in detecting the cued visual target. (Unlike fMRI analysis, which focuses on individual brain voxels (volumetric pixels), MVPA enhances fMRI interpretation by identifying the information in broader patterns of brain activity.) _medXpress

medxpress
New tools of brain imaging are opening new windows into the brain's basic works. The study (PNAS, doi:10.1073/pnas.1101042108) described at the link breaks new ground in understanding "top-down" mechanisms used by the brain to identify objects -- when the brain has been pre-cued as to the nature of the sought object. This type of research builds general knowledge of brain function. As the tools are refined, it will become possible to better distinguish between brain responses of different individuals. The tools will then move into a clinical setting for diagnostic and screening (learning disorders, dementia, etc.) purposes.

While the technology used was already established, and so did not present significant challenges, Peelen notes that it takes six seconds to measure a neural signature – so it was needed to overcome the way neural measurements had previously been confounded with visual activity. “We came up with a clever design in which we showed the visual cue without subsequently displaying a scene,” he adds. “Since we primary gathered data using this technique, the measured signal reflected brain activity in the absence of visual input.”

Given the brain’s ability to perceive the world using various senses, and the fact that the research relied on symbolic (rather than visually-specific) cues invoked OSC activity, Peelen says that he expects that his results would be similar with different types of symbolic cues, whether these are spoken or textual. “Indeed, if we search for something in our daily life environment, the trigger to search can come from multiple sources – that is, a thought, but also an external demand – and it is unlikely that the brain has developed different mechanisms for each of these different cues. A very interesting question is how the brain transforms a symbolic cue, such as a word, a thought, or spoken text, to a visual ‘search template’ that effectively guides visual search. Very little is known about this transformation process.” _MedXpress

Different brains are wired differently. Early brain research finds ways in which brains work alike. More refined research discovers and delineates differences. As brain imaging tools grow ever more sophisticated, the powerful drive to learn more about the human brain will run head-on into the obstinate and entrenched forces of political correctness.

Which do you think will win, ultimately?

Will Micro-Algae Become a Disruptive Technology?

Just as corn and peanuts stunned the world decades ago with their then-newly discovered multi-beneficial uses and applications, Texas AgriLife Research scientists in Corpus Christi think microalgae holds even more promise.

...There are an estimated 200,000 to 800,000 species of microalgae, microscopic algae that thrive in freshwater and marine systems, Fernandez said.


Of all those species, only 35,000 species have been described, he said. _SD

Carlos Fernandez Texas AgriLife Research LabMicro-algae can be prolific sources of biomass and lipids -- both of which are prime feedstocks for biofuels production. But algae are already grown and used profitably for a wide range of commercial products(Wikipedia). The research described below involves both basic and applied research for micro-algae.

"We're only starting to scratch the surface of discovering the natural secrets of microalgae and their many potential uses and benefits," he said. "But already it's obvious that farmers will one day soon be growing microalgae on marginal land that won't compete with fertile farmland. They won't even compete for fresh water to grow."

To understand how best to grow it, Fernandez constructed a microalgae physiology laboratory to study how it's affected by temperature, salinity, nutrients, light levels and carbon dioxide.

"We have four bioreactors in which we grow microalgae to determine the basic physiological responses that affect its growth," he said. "We will then integrate these responses into a simulator model, a tool we can use in the management of larger, outdoor systems."

In this study, different strains of microalgae will be evaluated for their capacity to produce large amounts of lipids, or fats, that can then be converted to produce and refine diesel and other biofuels, Fernandez said.

"Along with that, after extracting the lipids from the biomass of microalgae, there is a residue that we are going to analyze for its quality for use as feed for animals, including fish, shrimp or cattle."

Eventually, studies will evaluate the possibility of using the residue as a soil fertilizer.

"There are lots of other potential uses for the residue, but for now our focus is on feed and fertilizer," he said. _SD

If algae are grown in bioreactors, they will likely be oriented vertically -- which will act as an "area multiplier." In other words, far more algae can be grown "per acre" using vertical bioreactors than using horizontal ponds and raceways. The challenge for bioreactors involves using cheap materials which are durable and efficient.

Ponds and raceways can be built on non-productive lands, using brackish, salt, or waste water -- so as not to interfere with either food supplies or potable water supplies. In fact, algae can even purify wastewater to make it drinkable.

Algae can be prolific producers of fuels, foods (for humans), feeds (for animals), fertiliser for soils, cosmetics, chemical feedstocks, nutrient supplements, and many more products and precursors only now being discovered.

It is true that at this point in time, micro-algae cannot produce a biofuel which is price competitive with petro-fuels. But it would be wrong to make future predictions based upon current technologies. Companies which find early profitable niche uses for micro-algae are apt to expand into ever newer, larger, more recently profitable niches over time.

A list of international companies attempting to produce fuels from algae (Wikipedia). The list is not complete by any means.

The world is not what you think it is, because the world is constantly changing -- mostly out of your line of sight. The organisations and persons responsible for keeping you informed about the state of the changing world are generally incompetent boobs, crooks, and cronies -- tunnel-vision locked onto their own agendas and corrupt commitments. You are nothing but pawns on the board to these people: your professors, your government officials, your talking head anchors and pseudo-intellectual journalists and pundits.

Yes, micro-algae can become a disruptive technology, once the infrastructure of growth, production, distribution, and end-use is built.

But the most disruptive "technology" of all is the independent human mind that is ambitious, ever-searching, and willing to work opportunistically toward high-value goals as they come into view.

Biosingularity Revolution Pushes Against Economic Collapse

Image via NextBigFuture
A revolution in regenerative medicine, genetic recombineering, synthetic biology, systems biology, and several other points of the biosingularity are pushing ahead despite three years of global economic downturn and counting, since the fall of 2008.

Brian Wang introduces us to the "accelerated evolution machine," pictured above.

Say hello to the evolution machine. It can achieve in days what takes genetic engineers years. So far it is just a prototype, but if its proponents are to be believed, future versions could revolutionise biology, allowing us to evolve new organisms or rewrite whole genomes with ease. It might even transform humanity itself.

...Because biological systems are so complex, it is a huge advantage to be able to tweak lots of genes simultaneously, rather than one at a time, she says. "In almost every case you'll get a different solution that's a better solution."

...By automating selection and using a few tricks, though, it should be practical to screen for far more subtle characteristics. For instance, biosensors that light up when a particular substance is produced could be built into the starting strain. "The power going forward will have to do with clever selections and screens," says Church.

As revolutionary as this approach is, Church thinks MAGE's most far-reaching potential lies elsewhere. He reckons it will be possible to use the evolution machine to make many thousands of specific changes to a cell's DNA: essentially, to rewrite genomes.

At the moment, making extensive changes to even the smallest genome is extremely costly and laborious. Last year, the biologist and entrepreneur Craig Venter announced that his team had replaced a bacterium's genome with a custom-written one (Science, vol 329, p 52). His team synthesised small pieces of DNA with a specific sequence, and then joined them together to create an entire genome. It was an awesome achievement, but it took 400 person-years of labour and cost around $40 million.

MAGE can do the same job far more cheaply and efficiently by rewriting existing genomes, Church thinks. The idea is that instead of putting DNA strands into the machine with a range of different mutations, you add only DNA with the specific changes you want. Even if you are trying to change hundreds or thousands of genes at once, after a few cycles in the machine, a good proportion of the cells should have all the desired changes. This can be checked by sequencing.

...As the technology improves and becomes routine, says Church, it could also be used to alter the cells used for cell-based therapies. Tissue-engineered livers grown from stem cells, say, could have their genetic code altered so that they would be immune to liver-destroying viruses such as hepatitis C. _NewScientist_via_NBF

The "evolution machine" has its work cut out for it, but it may very well speed up some projects which do not depend upon significant transformations of the genome. More sizeable genomic transforms are not likely to be possible using such a simplist approach. But future generations of such machines are likely to grow sophisticated enough to make the work of future Craig Venters much faster and simpler.
Researchers at the LA Children's Hospital built a fully functioning artificial small intestine in mice.

A man from Eritrea was recently given an artificial trachea transplant in Sweden. The trachea was grown on a scaffold inside a bioreactor.

Scientists have isolated the human blood cell progenitor stem cell, which is capable of growing all the various cellular components of the blood system.

Johns Hopkins researchers have identified a "super neural precursor stem cell" which can not only differentiate into specialised brain cells, but can also reproduce itself!

A partial list of companies involved in regenerative medicine research and development

The US has been the world's driver of scientific and biomedical R&D for several decades now. There has been some question as to how long American research could maintain its drive, if the nation's economy was dragged down by dysfunctional governmental economic and regulatory policies. Yet, despite the current US government's apparent war against the private sector, some areas of private R&D are still thriving -- although not as well as prior to the fall of 2008.

It is vital that private sector financing be central to advanced R&D, to prevent the type of politicisation of science which has frozen climatology in an infantile state of biased activism (via GWPF), rather than dispassionate observation and honest hypothesis testing.

Federal domination of science funding has two quite intended consequences: both individual scientists and major universities have become wards of Washington. For decades, academic sociologists have noted that almost all faculty party affiliations are with the Democrats. This is no conspiracy–it is merely like-minded individuals hiring other like minds and voting their best interest. _Forbes

Why the Obama / Gore Carbon Hysteria Orthodoxy Is Wrong

A short 9 minute video based on the scientific findings of climatologist Roy Spencer, explaining why the IPCC climate orthodoxy and associated media / political carbon hysteria is turning out to be wrong. More at WUWT

According to the Greenland ice core charted above, temperatures were warmer 1,000 years ago, and warmer yet 2,000, then 3,000 years ago etc. CO2 levels have also been significantly higher in the past, particularly during some of the Earth's most prolific evolutionary eras.

It has been profitable for scientists and faux environmentalists to jump on the climate alarmist bandwagon. It was easy to fool the politicians, academics, and government funding agency bureaucrats -- and particularly easy to fool "science journalists" -- causing them all to panic.

Thanks to Obama administration suppression of coal, offshore oil & gas, nuclear power, and opposition to expanded use of Canadian oil sands, the US almost toppled into a state of energy starvation -- saved only by the fortuitous rise of the shale oil & gas industry. And the Obama administration is even trying to shut down shale fracking, behind the scenes! How stupid is that?

Healthy economies need energy. Lots of energy. When a US president bases his energy policy on a pseudoscientific theory of carbon hysteria, the entire nation suffers.

Economic Implications of Southern Europe's Demographic Collapse

The southern Europeans are doomed. They have passed a demographic point of no return. There simply aren’t enough females entering their child-bearing years in those countries to reverse the rapid aging. _SeekingAlpha

Southern Europe
You could as easily state the problem as: "Demographic implications of Southern Europe's economic collapse," since in such situations causation is decidedly circular. The implications of Southern Europe's economic / demographic decline for investors are relatively clear: stay away unless you know exactly what you are doing.

Between 2020 and 2045...the infertility of Southern Europe will catch up with it, and the elder dependent ratio will rise to over 60%–an impossible, unmanageable number. At that point the character of these countries will change radically; they will be overwhelmed with immigrants from North Africa as well as sub-Saharan Africa, who will not have the skills or the habits of civil society to maintain economic life. And their economies will slide into a degree of ruin comparable only to that of classical antiquity. Perhaps the Chinese will operate Greece as a theme park. Spain, which can draw on Latin American immigrants, is likely to be the least badly off.

...Why would anyone buy a 30-year bond from any of these countries? By 2041, there won’t be enough taxpayers left to pay the coupons. And that raises a related question: what is time horizon of an equity investment in those countries? Although Standard and Poor's calculates the duration of equities at somewhere between 20 and 30 years, that is a somewhat dubious estimation of interest sensitivity, not a measure of the horizon of expectations. Markets are notoriously short-sighted. But at some point markets must recognize that companies that have a rapidly-shrinking pool of workers as well as customers are in no position to earn profits. The real demographic crunch will start to hit in the mid-2020s, and it is possible that markets will ignore the inevitable demographic doom until then.

There’s little reason to expect European contagion to blow up the financial system today. But there’s also no reason to invest in those countries, except on a very opportunistic basis. _DavidGoldman_SeekingAlpha

"The demographic point of no return" happens when the population of fertile females falls below the point where population recovery can be reasonably expected. Japan is flirting with that point of no return, as are various populations in southern and eastern Europe. Immigration is not an answer unless the replacement populations are of equivalent or superior aptitude for managing and improving a high tech infrastructure.

When economic collapse is thrown into the middle of an ongoing demographic collapse, there is even less justification for procreation than existed before. And as population declines in the midst of economic contraction, opportunities for economic growth, innovation, and invention typically decline.

Backyard Molten Salt Reactors for Suburban Apocalypse

The suburbs may not seem to be the best place to survive an apocalypse, but some people think it can be done.

Who knows how everything will shake out when the world goes to hell, but the suburbs may be well positioned to thrive with fewer resources, as Brown points out. Suburbs are close enough to the city to be convenient and encourage community building, yet spread out enough to offer yards and substantial garden space. (Suburban soil is also usually less contaminated than urban soil.) The houses are large enough to accommodate multigenerational households and cottage industries, which some demographers predict as coming trends. _CityPaper

Popsci
But you and I know that to well and truly survive an apocalypse in the suburbs, you are going to need a lot of juice -- in more senses than one. You will need plenty of fluids, true. You will also need plenty of heat and electrical power to survive the winters and power air conditioners through the summer. In a third sense of the word "juice", you will need plenty of clout and respect. And what better way to gain the respect of one's extended neighbors, than to have your own functioning nuclear power plant in your backyard?

Consider the thorium molten salt reactor, pictured above:

The MSR design has two primary safety advantages. Its liquid fuel remains at much lower pressures than the solid fuel in light-water plants. This greatly decreases the likelihood of an accident, such as the hydrogen explosions that occurred at Fukushima. Further, in the event of a power outage, a frozen salt plug within the reactor melts and the liquid fuel passively drains into tanks where it solidifes, stopping the fission reaction. “The molten-salt reactor is walk-away safe,” Kutsch says. “If you just abandoned it, it had no power, and the end of the world came--a comet hit Earth--it would cool down and solidify by itself.”

Although an MSR could also run on uranium or plutonium, using the less-radioactive element thorium, with a little plutonium or uranium as a catalyst, has both economic and safety advantages. Thorium is four times as abundant as uranium and is easier to mine, in part because of its lower radioactivity. The domestic supply could serve the U.S.’s electricity needs for centuries. Thorium is also exponentially more efficient than uranium. “In a traditional reactor, you’re burning up only a half a percent to maybe 3 percent of the uranium,” Kutsch says. “In a molten-salt reactor, you’re burning 99 percent of the thorium.” The result: One pound of thorium yields as much power as 300 pounds of uranium--or 3.5 million pounds of coal.

Because of this efficiency, a thorium MSR would produce far less waste than today’s plants. Uranium-based waste will remain hazardous for tens of thousands of years. With thorium, it’s more like a few hundred. As well, raw thorium is not fissile in and of itself, so it is not easily weaponized. “It can’t be used as a bomb,” Kutsch says. “You could have 1,000 pounds in your basement, and nothing would happen.”

Without the need for large cooling towers, MSRs can be much smaller than typical light-water plants, both physically and in power capacity. _PS

And the advantages of the thorium molten salt reactor go on and on. Even many greenies are on board for thorium MSRs.

It is likely to be touch and go to get Obama's nuclear regulatory commission to license the safer, newer, cheaper nuclear plants, but nuclear engineer Kirk Sorensen has founded a company named Flibe, to build and market the devices. Even if he has to go to China to build the reactors, you can always have one smuggled into your country of choice and installed in your back yard under a small carnival tent -- to hide it from annoying satellites.

Remember, if you have a reactor like this, you will have all the juice you could possibly need. You could even build a giant dome over your entire neighborhood and give it the climate of Tahiti year-round, if you like. Tropical fruits taste quite good, particularly in the middle of typical apocalyptic mass food shortages.

But don't get cocky. Once residents of surrounding suburbs and neighboring cities catch on to the fact that you had the foresight to prepare for the apocalypse, they will want a large piece of what you have. That is where juice -- and knowing how to use it -- truly comes in handy.

More on this topic in a future posting.

Previously published at Al Fin Potpourri

Is Discussing the Singularity Better than Selling Crack on the Street?

Science Fiction writier Charlie Stross set off a great online fracas over the singularity late last month when he published "Three Arguments Against the Singularity" on his blog. The piece triggered a furious response from Michael Anissimov, and set the stage for a series of online singularity brushfire wars across the web.

Almost a week later, Kyle Munkittrick entered the fray with his piece, "The AI Singularity is Dead. Long Live the Cybernetic Singularity!" Munkittrick follows up that sally with a piece in a Discover blog "Why I'm Not Afraid of the Singularity." (via Brian Wang).... More from Robin Hanson at Overcoming Bias

The Al Fin blog was founded in 2005 as something of a "parasingularity" or "biosingularity" alternative to the Kurzweil singularity vision. Blog founder Al Fin's objection to the Kurzweilian vision and the associated "gee whiz! futurism school" has always been based on what he thinks is a somewhat better informed, clearer understanding of the basis of human intelligence than most singularity enthusiasts and artificial intelligence enthusiasts appear to possess.

The same "fuzzy understanding" of human intelligence appears to dog even singularity and AI critics, such as Charlie Stross and Robin Hanson. The fuzziness problem is far more severe in true believers in an AI Singularity, such as Ray Kurzweil.

Kyle Munkittrick came very close to getting some key ideas right, in his piece "The AI Singularity is Dead. Long Live the Cybernetic Singularity!

As neuro-interface technology improves (hat tip Greg Fish) the information on the internet and stored in our external brains will become more expansive and more intimately connected with our nervous systems. The steps toward the Singularity will not be progressive improvement of general AI but of the gradual blending of the biological wetware of the human brain with the artificial hardware of computer technology. The Singularity will be the perfection of the mind-computer interface, such that where the mental processes of the human right-brain ends and the high-powered computer left-brain ends will be indistinguishable both externally by objective observation and internally by the subjective experience of the individual. I call this event the Cybernetic Singularity. _KM

"Cyborg Singularity" actually sounds better than cybernetic singularity, and would be more accurate.

What virtually all of these singularity debaters -- both pro and con -- leave out of the discussion, is the potential for a qualitative change in human intelligence. While evolution constrains the adaptability of the human organism, including the brain, we do not understand genetics or the brain nearly enough to know what those limitations are.

That is why we cannot discount the "Cyborg Singularity." Human action is already greatly extended and empowered by telecommunications, advanced computing, and robotics. Throw in biotechnology, advanced materials, and nanotechnology, and you extend the range of human action immensely. So far, there is a human brain at the controls -- even if human initiated processes sometimes go out of control.

Eventually it will not be human minds -- as we know them -- at the controls. Whether by way of genetic engineering, cyborg symbiosis, or another method of evolved higher (faster, more powerful) intelligence, the "hands" at the controls will be moved by minds other than "ours."

That is why everyone involved in the debate is likely to be wrong, and by a wide margin. The reality is apt to be stranger than we can possibly imagine, at this point in our development. Does that mean that it a waste of time to discuss the ideas, that the debate is no better than selling crack on the street?

No, the discussion is helpful to those who do not get wrapped up in it, but rather use it as a springboard for ideas and speculations, based upon clear knowledge and logic of what is known at this time. Science fiction is also particularly useful for that purpose, along with such speculative discussions as linked above.

Bonus: Munkittrick summarises the argument as he sees it:

1. Stross’ point: Human intelligence has three characteristics: embodiment, self-interest, and evolutionary emergence. AI will not/cannot/should not mirror human intelligence.

2. Singularitarian response: Anissimov and Goertzel argue that human-level general intelligence need not function or arise the way human intelligence has. With sufficient research and devotion to Saint Bayes, super-intelligent friendly AI is probable.

3. Skeptic rebuttal: Hanson argues A) “Intelligence” is a nebulous catch-all like “betterness” that is ill-defined. The ambiguity of the word renders the claims of Singularitarians difficult/impossible to disprove (i.e. special pleading); Knapp argues B) Computers and AI are excellent at specific types of thinking and augmenting human thought (i.e. Kasparov’s Advanced Chess). Even if one grants that AI could reach human or beyond human level, the nature of that intelligence would be neither independent nor self-motivated nor sufficiently well-rounded and, as a result, “bootstrapping” intelligence explosions would not happen as Singularitarian’s foresee. _KM

What we are learning in neuroscience and cogsci is that philosophical arguments such as most of those above, are far behind the curve. Tools of computation and experimentation (including the participating human minds) are evolving and spewing out revolutionary findings so quickly that by the time most philosophers realise that the cyborg biosingularity is affecting their lives, it will be too late.

Al Fin futurologists predict that the cyborg biosingularity will be initiated in a wholly unauthorised manner by persons who may or may not be prepared to deal with the repercussions.

Earth's Climate Has Always Been Chaotic & Out of Control

Average temperatures in Britain could fall by two degrees centigrade, according to the study led by Mike Lockwood, professor of space environment physics at Reading University, because of a drop in the amount of sunspot activity. _DailyMail

Little Ice Age Plunging In?
The Earth's climate is chaotic by nature, and given to drastic changes and shifts as a matter of course. The many overlapping natural cycles which contribute to global climate have been largely ignored by climate scientists -- until now.

Professor Lockwood's findings could mean the average winter temperature could drop below 2.5C, compared to the average British winter now of 5C, the newspaper reported.

In June, three different studies all concluded that sunspot activity looks set to decline over the next 10 years.

Experts said the next upswing in sunspot activity, which follows an 11-year cycle, will not be as strong as normal - or might not even happen at all.
The findings were presented at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society's solar physics division.

They said a decrease in global warming might result in the years after 2020, the approximate time when sunspots are expected to disappear for years, maybe even decades. _DailyMail

Meanwhile, climate scientists are just now beginning to admit the importance of the urban heat island effect, which has biased global temperature records upward -- contributing to the carbon hysteria which has sustained the orthodoxy of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming, and helped drive the bandwagon and steamroller of the great climate panic of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

More honest scientists are likewise admitting that extreme weather events have nothing to do with atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.

You Mustn't Believe the Lies that Green Zealots Tell. Not only about nuclear power, but about climate change, resource depletion, overpopulation, etc.

Previously published at Al Fin, the Next Level

Prolific and innovative thinker and scientist J Storrs Hall takes a look at where the climate has been, compares current climate with similar climate curves in the past, and slyly invites readers to guess where the climate is likely to be heading.

First -- Where the climate has been over the past 10,000 years or so... :

Images from WUWT
Next -- Comparing our current climate curve with similar climate curves from the past, to get an idea of a possible trajectory... :

Here I’ve plotted the 400 years following each minimum in the record that leads to a sustained sharp rise. There were 10 of them; the first five are plotted in cyan and the more recent 5 in blue. You can see that in the latter part of the Holocene the traces settle down from the wilder swings of the earlier period. Even so, every curve, even the early ones, seems to have an inflection — at least a change in slope — somewhere between 200 and 250 years after the minimum.

The hatched black line is the average of the 5 recent (blue) spikes. The red dots are the uptick at the end of GISP2 and HadSST, spliced at 1850. Note that ALL the minima dates are from GISP2. _WUWT

Then Josh invites readers to guess what will happen next, if history is any guide.

For some parts of the northern hemisphere, it may be time to get out the summer parkas.

Climate simpletons who believe that the global climate is controlled by one trace gas which constitutes less than 0.04% of the planetary atmosphere, have controlled the microphones, printing presses, funding agencies, and public stage for far too long. It is time for science to displace the politically convenient (and economically lucrative) climate hysteria, so that ordinary people can make rational plans.

Previously published at Al Fin Potpourri

Humans cannot control the climate. Humans cannot even significantly influence the climate except on a regional basis -- via land use changes and black soot effluents etc. The popular madness and delusion of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming reflects badly on human governments, inter-governments, environmental organisations, and human gullibility in general.

A resilient, more skeptical, and less easily led type of human is badly needed.

More__ 6July11 __: A Reminder that Climatology is just an infant science

Reflections on Human Nature on the 4th of July

We Are Marching to Utopia....We Will Soon Be There

...optimists and idealists -- with their ignorance about the truths of human nature and human society, and their naive hopes about what can be changed -- have wrought havoc for centuries....instead of utopian efforts to reform human society or human nature, we [should] focus on the only reform that we can truly master -- the improvement of ourselves through the cultivation of our better instincts. _OUP Review of "Uses of Pessimism"

Sure as I know anything, I know this - they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, ten? They'll swing back to the belief that they can make people... better. And I do not hold to that. _Captain Malcolm Reynolds

There is something deep in human nature which has resisted change -- despite the best efforts of crusaders, utopians, religionists, and wishful thinkers -- for many [tens of?] thousands of years. After countless failures to reform the human spirit, most utopians are unfazed. If they can only grab enough power and control over how resources are distributed, they are sure that they can bring perfection to the land, under their own benevolent leadership. "The land will heal, the sea levels will begin to subside, and every man will say to every other man, you are my brother." And so on.

Philosopher Roger Scruton -- author of The Uses of Pessimism -- takes a somewhat more reluctant view:

The belief that humanity makes moral progress depends upon a wilful ignorance of history. It also depends upon a wilful ignorance of oneself – a refusal to recognise the extent to which selfishness and calculation reside in the heart even of our most generous emotions, awaiting their chance. Those who invest their hopes in the moral improvement of humankind are therefore in a precarious position: at any moment the veil of illusion might be swept away, revealing the bare truth of the human condition. Either they defend themselves against this possibility with artful intellectual ploys, or they give way, in the moment of truth, to a paroxysm of disappointment and misanthropy. Both of these do violence to our nature. The first condemns us to the life of unreason; the second to the life of contempt.


...In order to see human beings as they are, therefore, and to school oneself in the art of loving them, it is necessary to apply a dose of pessimism to all one’s plans and aspirations. _GloomMerchant

In another piece, Scruton presents a paradoxical recommendation for how to teach children to think for themselves, logically and clearly:

...children are drawn to magic...they spontaneously animate their world with spirits and spells...they find relief and excitement in stories in which the heroes can summon supernatural forces to their aid and vanquish untold enemies – these facts reflect layers of deep settlement in the human psyche. But they also remind us that, in the life of the child, belief and imagination are not to be clearly distinguished, and that both serve other functions than the pursuit of truth.


...humanists should wake up to this point, and be careful when they seek to deprive their children of enchantment, or to replace their spontaneous fantasies with the cold hard facts of empirical science. It could well be that religion is a better discipline than pop science, when it comes to shaping the rational intellect, and that [we can offer our] children more in the way of a solid foundation, by anchoring their imagination in sacred stories and religious doctrines, than they are likely to be offered by those “Darwinian fairy tales’” as David Stove has called them, which have gained such currency in the wake of Dawkins and Hitchens.


In response to a child’s metaphysical curiosity grown-ups can say that everything has a scientific explanation. But they will know that this is a lie. The proposition that everything has a scientific explanation does not have a scientific explanation – it describes an amazing fact about our universe, a point where reasoning falls silent. There are many such points, as anyone who has children knows: why is there anything? Why should I be good? What existed before the Big Bang? What is consciousness? You can wrestle with these questions through philosophy, but science won’t answer them.


Children have an inkling of this. They also recognise that behind these questions lies a huge void – an emptiness which must be filled with love and reassurance, if their existence is not to seem like an accident. _Art_of_Certainty

Utopians try so hard to purge their children's minds of falsehood and "error", to create the perfect children of rational thought, capable of seeing through all the corrupt fables of the past. Except...children will be who they will be. You cannot make boys into girls or girls into boys without destroying who they are. And you cannot make humans into angels without ruining the essence of what they are. And still the utopians continue to try -- until they finally throw their hands up in complete exasperation at and condemnation of the utter evil of those who do not think along the same lines as themselves, the utopians.

The disgusted dismissal of homo rapiens and all his works that we find spelled out by John Gray in Straw Dogs is not a form of pessimism. It is an attempt to dismiss humanity entirely, as a kind of plague on the face of the earth. That kind of misanthropic nihilism is of no use to us. It removes the ground from all our values, and puts nothing in their place. _GloomMerchant

At that point, they often begin to plot and fantasize the great dieoff, to cleanse the otherwise pristine Earth of the incorrigible human demons who infest the lands and oceans. Fortunately, utopians are as incompetent in planning the great dieoff as they are in most other aspects of their lives.

The point is not to resist all change or improvement of humans. But any lasting change for the better is likely to happen from the bottom up, not from the top down.

Nothing illustrates the different approaches to a better world than the contrast between the French and American revolutions of the late 19th century.

The primary difference in causes that led to the American Revolution and the French Revolution was based in the world view of the innate goodness or innate evil of man. _Hyperhistory

Not all utopians believe in the innate goodness of men -- sometimes they only believe in the innate perfectibility of men. But utopias born of such ideas all come to a bitter end.

Every child has to learn to think for himself, from the beginning. But he must have a beginning from which to start.

The need for foundations is quite clearly an adaptation, and these foundations must provide the promise of protection and love, if they are to fit the new organism for its brief time in the world. If that is so, you are not going to eliminate the need for faith: the best you can do is to withhold all objects of faith, so that a child goes hungry into the life to which he or she is destined. More often than not, a humanist education will leave a child exposed to massive and mind-clogging superstitions of the Harry Potter and Star Wars kind. But these superstitions contain far less in the way of insight than is contained in the first chapter of Genesis.


Religious stories are also the result of natural selection – though selection at another level: they have come down to us because they have fulfilled a moral need. They have survived refutation because they contain, beneath their superficial falsehood, the moral truths that people need, when they must order their lives by good examples. _The Art of Certainty

This is true not only of religious stories, but of all the mythology and lasting moral fables from antiquity. Children must have some kind of foundation that transcends deductive logic, because that is how minds begin. Then, later, when they choose to either reshape or reaffirm their beliefs, they will have a sense of having decided for themselves, and feel stronger for it.

Yes, humans can make choices that make them better. Improved nutrition of mother and child can make humans stronger, smarter, taller, and sometimes capable of clearer thought. But a power structure that attempts to legislate morality, to engineer the moral and ideological purity of the human souls of its citizens -- that power structure is morally bankrupt, and deserves to die quickly. If it is allowed to continue, its leaders will eventually decide that the recalcitrant citizens do not deserve the benefit of the leaders' great wisdom. Then, beware.

This question has been acquiring an ever greater urgency over the past century -- even longer. It is now coming to a head in the demographic and economic crises of many of the world's most advanced nations. A culture that has rested on its own laurels, that has comforted itself with mental images of its own progressive improvement, is soon to be reawakened to a coarse and unruly history.

This article is re-published from an original Al Fin article first published 9 June 2010

Chinese Undercurrents

As the world's second largest economic system and an expanding regional military power, China plays an important role as an East Asian would-be hegemon and as an international power broker. It is not easy to keep up with where China is attempting to go, but it is worth an attempt.

China's Hidden Debt

Could China be the next Greece?

How China's regional banks hide loans and transactions

China's Demographic Transition to Senescence

Economics of an aging population

China's Internal Discord

How much longer can the Chinese Communist Party last?


Frustrated Chinese migrant workers rise up

Many Chinese workers unhappy with conditions

Autocratic CCP Rule Kills Creativity and Innovation

How China Kills Creativity

China needs more former British colonies like Hong Kong

More Foreign Companies Abandon China

Surging China Costs Driving Companies Away

China Bumps Up Against Resistance from Neighbors

Beijing's Territorial Claims Being Challenged

China's government has published very impressive economic growth numbers for many years running -- even in the midst of a global financial collapse. It is well to give the Chinese government the benefit of the doubt, given its massive cash reserves and impressive and shiny new buildings in Shanghai etc.

On the other hand, it is easy for outside observers to be fooled by superficial appearances. If westerners learned anything from the great collapse and fall of the USSR and Eastern European Communism, it should have been to never blindly trust facades.

More is required than mere published numbers to create a successful, vibrant, innovative, and sustainable society.

Cross-posted from abu al-fin

10 Acres w/Dome Home In Spectacular Setting: Only $74,000

Rio Grande River Valley Near Taos

Images via Zillow
Somewhere within 20 miles of Taos, New Mexico, sits a tiny 320 sq ft dome with a lovely view of the Sangre de Cristo mountains. Also nearby is the scenic Rio Grande River Gorge. Skies over the dome are almost always clear -- deep blue in the daytime and incredibly starry at night. The dome sits on 10 acres of land, all for $74,000. But you will need to get used to living off the grid.

“There’s quite a few people who are interested in building dome homes,” explained listing agent John Kejr of Dreamcatcher Real Estate. “There are a probably a couple of dozen different companies that have [the kits].”

Dennis Johnson of Natural Space Domes in Minnesota sells kits for building a dome home — either the entire pre-fabricated kit with framework and sheeting and interior panels or a basic kit, which just includes the metal connection brackets.

While a small dome home kit, like the one in Taos, costs somewhere under $5,000, three, four and five-bedroom plus homes can cost anywhere from $25,000 to $100,000, and Johnson claims they’re relatively easy to build and someone without a lot of construction experience can build one.

“The dome is a connect-the-dots kind of thing, a very easy system,” he said. “It’s like a giant Tinkertoy set.”

...The home is near the Rio Grande river and has “spectacular views” of the mountains, Kejr said, but be prepared to use an all-wheel drive vehicle to access the property during heavy rainstorms due to muddy conditions. _Zillow

Hmmm. Remote location, off-grid, difficult to access in wet or wintry weather? Generally fine weather. Beautiful view of the Sangre de Cristos and relatively near access to the river gorge and to prime winter skiing?

Who could ask for a better location for surviving the next apocalypse?

Previously published at Al Fin Potpourri

Revolutionary D-Dalus Rotor Craft Debuts for Royal Society

The revolutionary Austrian hovercraft design -- D-Dalus -- was recently exhibited at the Royal Aeronautical Society. The craft is still early in the development stage, but the claims flying around the future capabilities of the future craft are astronomical.

At the heart of D-DALUS is a revolutionary propulsion system containing a number of patented inventions, including a friction free bearing at the points of high G force, and a system that keeps propulsion in dynamic equilibrium, thereby allowing the guidance system to quickly restore stability in flight.

The propulsion consists of 4 sets of contra-rotating disks, each set driven at the same rpm by a conventional aero-engine. The disks are surrounded by blades whose angle of attack can be altered by off-setting the axis of the rotating disks. As each blade can be given a different angle of attack, the resulting main thrust can be in any required direction in 360° around any axis. This allows the craft to launch vertically, remain in a fixed position in the air, travel in any direction, rotate in any direction, and thrust upwards thereby ‘gluing down’ on landing. _D-Dalus Detail

Austrian research company IAT21 has presented a new type of aircraft at the Paris Air Show which has the potential to become aviation's first disruptive technology since the jet engine.

The D-Dalus (a play on Daedalus from Greek mythology) is neither fixed wing or rotor craft and uses four, mechanically-linked, contra-rotating cylindrical turbines, each running at the same 2200 rpm, for its propulsion.

The key to the D-Dalus' extreme maneuverability is the facility to alter the angle of the blades (using servos) to vector the forces, meaning that the thrust can be delivered in your choice of 360 degrees around any of the three axes. Hence D-Dalus can launch vertically, hover perfectly still and move in any direction, and that's just the start of the story. _Gizmag_via_NextBigFuture

This propulsion system may eventually scale from the microscopic to the size of large freight haulers. I suspect it will be pursued initially as a spy and surveillance platform, and as an insertion and extraction method for special ops teams. Also as remotely-operated stealthy substitutes for attack helicopters such as the Apache. Eventually, it may provide the platform for flying cars and flying boats, among other consumer and adventure toys.

The most obvious and immediate application for D-Dalus is as a little flying spy robot that can fly in doors and windows and snoop around indoors. Larger versions would be perfect for search and rescue missions, and the designers even think that in the long term, vehicles based on this technology might be what you use to commute to work. That's right — flying cars! _Dvice

I suspect that these toys will prove quite expensive to buy, operate, and maintain, but I would like to be proven wrong about that. At this point, they are at the prototype stage, and may not become reliable enough for even military use for quite some time.

Adapted from an article previously published at Al Fin, The Next Level

Neuro-Opto-Genetics and the New Cyborg Future

Using a combination of genetic engineering and laser technology, researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have manipulated brain wiring responsible for reward-seeking behaviors, such as drug addiction. The work, conducted in rodent models, is the first to directly demonstrate the role of these specific connections in controlling behavior.

The UNC study, published online on June 29, 2011, by the journal Nature, uses a cutting-edge technique called "optogenetics" to tweak the microcircuitry of the brain and then assess how those changes impact behavior. The findings suggest that therapeutics targeting the path between two critical brain regions, namely the amygdala and the nucleus accumbens, represent potential treatments for addiction and other neuropsychiatric diseases. _SD

It is necessary to read between the lines to understand what is being described. The scientists introduced foreign genes into selected pathways deep inside a rat's brain, then sent light via fiber-optics to trigger activity in the genetically modified pathways. The behaviour of the rats could then be controlled, using external light pulses.

By tapping into a wide variety of neural pathways -- to trigger different brain networks -- entirely different modes of behaviour could be influenced. But that is just the beginning.

The brain can be literally "played like a keyboard," with selective targeting of pathways and stimuli. Different genetic strains of opsins which respond to different wavelengths or pulse patterns of light could be implanted in brain nuclei or pathways quite close to each other, to prevent interference by neighboring brain networks. This level of fine control over the broad range of brain networks would allow the "programming" of a wide range of behaviours -- both skilled and unskilled -- over a period of time.

Utilising the brain's reward centers and pleasure centers -- but on a significantly more nuanced level than previously possible -- scientists and neuro-engineers could instill quite sophisticated behavioural repertoires in the unsuspecting cyborg's brain.

Humans are relatively unsuspecting as to the degree to which their important behaviours are influenced by miniscule quantities of natural chemicals, errant electrical stimuli, or ephemeral environmental phenomena. A sufficiently sophisticated and broad-spectrum approach to behavioural modification and programming could make even the most intelligent animal susceptible to simple light pulses. A short set of pulses might well set into motion behavioural programs which might go on for hours or longer, once the training is complete.

Just a short time spent contemplating the reinforcement pathways involved in maintaining drug addiction, or video game use, tells us that if a program of behavioural modification enlists the reward system of the brain sufficiently, it will become quasi-permanent and difficult to dis-engage, once mature.

These ideas have important implications for normal day to day human activity, at all developmental levels. Most of us will not sit still for genetic modification and implantation of optical or electrical probes. But we are being continuously programmed just the same, and our reward systems are helping to solidify this programming. It is not quite as far as some may imagine, from where we are to what is described above.

Along with the coming age of wonderful medical and psychological cures, will come free-riders of mind modification. We can either learn to tweak ourselves in ways that make us more alert, awake, and alive -- or we can join everyone else as they shuffle down the Idiocracy road.